


jam #02: Untouched Case Files

by PokeNirvash



Series: Kinky Kunoichi [2]
Category: Jam-Orbital, Original Work
Genre: Corruption, Gen, Paperwork, Police, Shibuya - Freeform, Smoking, Tokyo (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 18:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19677157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeNirvash/pseuds/PokeNirvash
Summary: Naokuu Tanoshiba joined the police to be like the cops he idolized in his youth, but in his three years with the Shibuya Police’s Investigation Division, all he’s done is fill out paperwork for unexciting and repetitive cases. In that time, he’s looked for an opportunity to do some legitimate, thrilling detective work. That opportunity might just come sooner than he thinks, though at the cost of one of his trusted mentor’s loved ones…





	1. Prologue

The blaring of an old-fashioned digital alarm clock, its individual drones evenly spaced out at an average two per second, harshly pierced through the silence of the dark one-room apartment. The alarm, bearing the time of 7:00 in blocky red letters on the dial with a similarly colored dot near a label saying “AM”, sat on the wooden floor next to a futon resting in the middle of the living space. As the alarm continued its audial assault, a tired groan could be heard from underneath the blanket draped over the futon and the waking individual laying atop it. The blanket rustled as the person beneath shifted around, and before long, an arm stretched out into the musty air of the apartment. Their right hand came down on top of the alarm, their index pressing a button that turned off the annoying digital siren. Their pinky finger pushed a switch one notch to the left, as if they were taking an extra precaution.

As the arm pulled back, its owner sat upright on the futon with a soft grunt, the blanket lifting up at first before dropping to reveal the upper body it once obscured. It was a man in his early twenties, wearing a plain white tee and boxer shorts. After staring forward for a few seconds with a tired face, he turned to the left, where the curtains-drawn window looking out of his nearly-barren abode was situated.

He walked up to the window and pulled back just one of the two curtains shrouding the room in darkness. With that pull, the room instantly lit up, but not with the morning sunshine. The sky was instead flooded with clouds, their grey forms blocking out any sign of blue. There was no rain, nor was there any sign of a storm, but the groggy atmosphere was less than inviting to the man. He looked out the window at the dreary sky, his thin but healthy body partially turned as his right hand still held onto the curtain. It being morning, the light grey sky regardless brought a sense of light upon him; particularly, his taupe brown bedhead, his dull red eyes, and his spotty facial hair.

“Hrmm… It’s gonna be one of _those_ days, is it? Great…” he remarked with a bitter tone.

After silently assessing the day to come with a displeased stare, further emphasized by the rings under his eyes, the man went right to performing his early morning functions. As the bathroom faucet ran and emptied a continuous rush of water straight into the drain, he stood in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth. His mouth was closed around the end of the brush, moving his arm and rotating his hand to tilt the bristles towards a different area, blindly on instinct.

**“Every day is a routine.”**

Once the brushing was finished, he rinsed out his mouth next. He held a clear glass of water in one hand, his head tilted back as he gargled what he poured into his mouth seconds earlier. As soon as the gargle was complete, he spit the liquid out into the sink, flowing down the drain just as the water from the now turned-off faucet did before.

**“One of an endless array of cycles brimming with startling regularity.”**

Several more minutes passed in the blink of an eye. Now without a shirt and with only slightly neater hair, the mirror fogged up on the edges from the preceding shower, he now took to shaving off his facial hair. He had already taken care of the beginnings of a mustache, sideburns, and chin-beard that were no longer to be, and was now working on the most difficult part: the underside of his chin. His cordless electric razor ran over the skin just above his neck, failing to nip some of the hairs at their proverbial buds. One attempt at going over the same spot prompted the razor to nick at his neck, his blank face breaking as he winced in slight pain.

**“It’s a real grind, but breaking even a single one of those cycles is such a pain.’”**

After his shave, he got himself dressed. A white button-up shirt with no tie, a pair of dark blue business pants, black socks, and a black long-sleeved jacket that spoke anything but “for the workplace”, down to it only reaching pelvis-level. He was in the middle of putting on the jacket when he stopped by the minifridge in his apartment’s kitchen space, opening it and retrieving an unopened bottle of canned coffee from inside. The text decorating the top of the brown steel can indicated that it was of the “GEORGYA” brand, the center further advertising it as “CLASSIC ORIGINAL QUALITY COFFEE”.

The man flipped open the tab of the can and started drinking from it as he pushed his arm all the way through his jacket’s left sleeve, reaching the respective shoulder. He continued drinking as he moved from the kitchen into the genkan.

**“And so it goes on.”**

And then, before he knew it, he was outside. Outside the two-story stucco rental apartment building in which he lived, the entrances into the apartments facing the adjacent parking lot with a green welded wire fence separating the two. Entering the parking lot from around the fence, the man walked across the asphalt in his black lace-up business shoes for just a few steps, and stopped at one of the few vehicles in that lot: a blue Honda Civic.

Looking at his ride with the same expression he had worn since waking up, he raised his hand, holding not the can of coffee, which was in his left, but a key ring. On it were his car key, his apartment key, a couple additional keys, a swiss army knife, a pocket flashlight, and the fob for his car key. He pressed a button on the fob with his thumb.

**“The same tasks are performed…”**

Nothing happened. Groaning under his breath, he pressed the button again. And again, and again. Push after push of the button, each one coming sooner than the last, escalating from mere frustration to a practical frenzy in seconds.

**“…the same mistakes are made…”**

Again, nothing happened. His eyebrows furrowed and twitching and the blank expression on his face downturned into a frustrated scowl, he let out a barely silent grunt as he threw his arm down, his thumb angrily mashed against the abused fob button.

**“…and the same thoughts come to mind.”**

Without a word, he walked up to his car and stuck the key in the hole next to the driver’s side door handle. With a jerk to the right, the car unlocked without a single interruption. He removed the key and opened the door, getting inside as he had intended several seconds earlier.

**“And through it all, there’s no variety.”**

As he lowered himself into his seat, the man took another drink from his can of coffee, using his right index and middle digits to pull the door closed while the others held his keys in place. Sighing after the most recent swig, rendered completely quiet outside his Civic, he set down the can and put his keys into the ignition under his steering wheel.

**“It’s an existence free of change, free of choice, characterized by a single tell-all word.”**

His right hand now resting on the wheel, he grabbed the black bow of the key and gave it a firm jerk upwards, that single action starting the car.

**“Monotony.”**

And off he went. He left his cheap apartment in Setagaya behind for the day and headed east for work. Ten minutes later, he found himself at the end of Setagaya Street as it fed into the longest stretch of his route: Japan National Route 246, also known as Tamagawa Street, heading straight towards downtown Shibuya whilst running parallel to Shuto Expressway No. 3. As the structure of the expressway at the intersection came into view, however, so did a horizontal traffic signal that bore the red light. As the first vehicle coming from Setagaya Street to reach the stop line, less than a meter beyond the extremely wide crosswalk, his Civic slowed to a stop on the crosswalk, devoid of significant pedestrian volume in that early hour.

**“To call something monotonous is the same as saying something lacks meaning.”**

Upon stopping, he reached to the left to grab something from one of the two cup holders on either side of his automatic transmission lever. In favor of the canned coffee he left with, he grabbed something different: a pack of cigarettes. The pack was white with a diagonal metallic gold pattern running across the front. At the top of the pack was the brand name, “ROPE”. The bottom half remained hidden, both as he grabbed the pack and as he brought it up to his mouth, guiding a cigarette out the top with his right hand and closing his lips around the end. He pulled his hand back, setting down the pack and picking up a dark gray lighter. With a single flick of the Bic, the cig was lit. He moved his thumb away from the ignition switch to turn off the flame, lowering his hand and puckering his mouth as he brought his gaze back to the traffic light, reflected in his car windshield over the empty passenger’s side.

**“No good ever comes from it, but at the same time, no bad comes from it either. Instead, what comes from it is a whole lotta _nothing_.”**

After a few more seconds of waiting, the light turned green and he took off once again, making a slow and cautious start.

**“Of course, nothing always starts out that way.”**

Ten to fifteen minutes later, after driving along Tamagawa Street with surely another couple more traffic stops, he finally reached his destination. Somewhat. Sitting along a one-way backstreet, next to a thin 9-story building, was a parking lot surrounded by even more buildings. Judging by the number of spots, it appeared to be seldom used already. Three spots backed up against the thin building’s exterior stairwells, safeguarded by a metal welded-wire fence, while the rest were lined up around the remaining structures.

**“At first, it’s just a single day. It can be a good day, or a bad day, or even a decidedly average day, like “hey, today was _actually_ survivable!””**

The Civic pulled into one of the 23 open spots and came to a stop. Almost immediately after, the driver’s side door opened and the man stepped out. As he closed the door behind him, he looked up at the building across the backstreet, stashing his keys away before bringing his right hand up to his half-finished cigarette. He pulled it out, tapping it to dispose of the ash hanging off as he blew out the smoke in the last of several exhalations for that specific stick. He dropped it to the asphalt below, and placed the bottom of his shoe against the butt. Under the heel of his foot, he ground it into the pavement before swiping it to the right, the extinguished end of the smoldering remains smearing to form a noticeable black skidmark.

**“But…”**

With his car parked and morning smoke discarded, he then entered the building across from the parking lot. His place of work, his destination. The establishment’s front lobby had white plaster walls on either side of the entrance, a black marble wall in back that housed a pair of elevators, a ceiling raised above the top of the ground floor, and grey tile floors that produced a shine from the fluorescent lighting above, just like they did with the marble wall. There were multiple access control gates separating the lobby just past the entrance from the rest. The area beyond those gates was open space, where multiple men in business attire, with one or two in standard issue police uniform, chatted amongst one another.

**“To experience just _one_ of those days one after the other, for months or longer ad nauseam…”**

The man approached the gates as he entered the building’s lobby, his can of coffee no longer in hand, stopping at the second from the right. He looked forward with that same tired look in his eyes, even though the weary color under them had faded. He rummaged around in his right jacket pocket for a few seconds before pulling out an ID card attached to a faded red lanyard, pressing it against the screen to the right of the gate. That action was enough to trigger a green light and subsequent beep from the device.

**“It’s boring. It’s tiresome. It’s utterly pointless.”**

The clear gates opened and the man stepped through, returning the ID card to his jacket. Without any additional pause, he walked at a steady pace towards the elevators, while the access gates closed automatically once the first few steps past were taken.

**“And yet, nothing is done to change any of that.”**

After some wait, one of the elevator doors opened and the man went inside. He took four steps and then turned around to face out the doors and into the lobby. He stared out for a few seconds as he reached over and pressed the button for his floor, pulling back to let others come inside the lift and join him. And all the while, his gaze was fixed and his mouth was open in presumed wonder. Where was he looking?

**“Maybe that’s because doing so would threaten the comfortability of the daily routine.”**

He was looking out at a banner, hanging a meter or two down from the ceiling at the top of the third floor. It was a simple flag, hung vertically. The white cloth bore no text; only a single symbol. A blue equilateral triangle with a white oval situated inside near the base. Coming from the lower left corner and the middle of the right side were two blue curves, like thin triangles whose lines refused to stay straight. Their presence made the white oval appear as the letter S instead. And inside the S was the red-colored profile of an Akita dog, next to the katakana characters “シブヤ”, or “Shibuya”.

**“Or perhaps, that negligence is done out of a mere sense of duty.”**

He looked up at the banner for a few more seconds, and then looked down, staring forward with the same expression he woke up with. With a few others, cops and those more formally dressed alike, surrounding him in the metal-walled box, all that was left was to wait for the doors to shut and take him up.

**“My name is Naokuu Tanoshiba, age 23, Detective Third Rank with the Shibuya Police, and that monotony is my _life_.”**

A few seconds later, the silver sliding doors closed, and the last leg of his journey to his work station began. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. “GEORGYA” is a reference to Georgia brand coffee, manufactured by Coca-Cola and primarily sold in Japan.  
> 2\. The bow is the protrusion at the opposite end of a key.  
> 3\. “ROPE” is a reference to Hope brand cigarettes.  
> 4\. The insignia located in the lobby of the building where Naokuu works is the symbol mark of the Shibuya Police Station. The Akita dog featured in the symbol is Hachiko.


	2. Act 1

Ding. The building’s main elevator arrived at the 6th above-ground floor, one of several destinations on its current trip upwards. Less than half the number of people who boarded at the first floor remained. A balding man in a tan suit and tie checking his watch, an older gent in a black suit unbuttoned partially to reveal his white undershirt talking with a younger cop in cap and uniform, and one other staring at one of the upper corners as if in a trance. As the doors opened, Naokuu, the remaining occupant of the bunch, departed the metal box with his fingers half-way dipped into his pants pockets. His expression had not changed one bit since he got on. It was just that same blank face, free of all emotions except weariness.

The elevator immediately emptied out into an open working space, whose continuous dropped ceiling barely showered the room with fluorescent lights from the rectangular fixtures built into the mineral fiber. The area wasn’t completely in the dark from natural light, though. Though the khaki plaster walls on either side prevented light from coming in, the windows straight ahead, belonging to a conference room separated from the main space by clear walls and a door equally so, brightened the room with what the outside grogginess bothered to provide. A pathway was cleared from the elevator to the conference room door, and on either side were four rows of two desks each, a total sixteen on the brown mesh carpeting. Less than half of the desks were occupied, the employees of the law seated and working. Some wrote on paper, while others typed on their laptops, the clacking of keys being the only sound that could be heard. Their desks had papers, open or closed computers, phones, wire file baskets, jars of pens, staplers, desk lamps, and sometimes framed pictures of loved ones, sitting up on stands. Sitting next to each desk to its left was a small black trash bin, their interior lined with a clear bag.

Naokuu’s desk was the first to his left in the front row, and in comparison to its surrounding companions, it was only half as full. No laptop and no pictures were to be found. No electrical devices at all, in fact. All that was important sat at the front edge. His nameplate, 頼柴直空. To the left, a metal jar with two ballpoint pens. To the right, a black stapler. On either side, a wire file basket with signs hanging from them. The sign on the left read “未完成”, or “Incomplete”, while the right read “完成”, or “Completed”. A pair of “IN” and “OUT” baskets, so to speak. The out basket held nothing, but the in had a stack of manila file folders three times the height of basket itself. Even without exaggeration, the sight of the folder stack was enough to make Naokuu’s skin crawl. For good measure, he also groaned under his breath in only the subtlest anxiety, his shadow looming over the stack as he looked down at its menace. But after looking at it for a few seconds, he closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath.

“There’s nothing to worry about. It’s only paperwork. Nothing special, just the same as any other day…”

He inhaled once more, slowly and softly, before reopening his eyes. Though still languid, the worry that was once there had vanished, with confidence in its stead.

“You can do this.”

With his mental preparations complete, Naokuu pulled out the chair at his desk, a stacking chair with a gray cushion seat, and sat down. His right arm reached out for the in basket, grabbing and placing the topmost manila folder on the empty space before him. Attached to the front of the folder was a white sticker bearing text relevant to its contents.

物的損害事件＃3561146

神宮前4丁目26

2084年3月10日

Property Damage Case #3561146

Jingumae 4-chome-26

March 10, 2084

Naokuu gently opened up the file and quickly skimmed over its contents. Before doing so, however, he took off his jacket and let it rest against the back of his seat. It wasn’t draped over with the outside covering the very back like an average person would do with their coat. Instead, the inside lining covered up the cushioned side of the back, the upper portion bunched up over the top and the arms hanging free like one would casually shrug off while already seated. Naokuu didn’t appear to mind that he discarded his jacket for the morning so unprofessionally; he had bigger things to worry about, like the paperwork in front of him.

After his visual run-through of the first page of the case’s contents, Naokuu reached over and grabbed one of the two ballpoints from his pen jar. The pen he chose was black and had a clicker at the end. He held it upright in his hand, his thumb resting on the clicker for a second before coming down and pushing out the tip of the actual writing apparatus. All the while, he looked down at the file in his final preparation for the work ahead. And then, after one more second, he lowered his writing hand, bringing the pen’s tip to the paper, and began to write.

For the next minute, he jotted down what he was normally assigned onto the form. Sometimes, the pen skipped around from section to section, filling in various blanks where necessary. Other times, it produced line after line of information, as if he were making a rough draft report out of thoughts either pre-existing or predictable. From left to right, went both his pen and his gaze as he strolled his way through the contents, at a speed faster than the norm but surprisingly calm. His expression did not change once as he made his way through the report section. Once it was done, he moved on to the last portion of the form: the signature. 署名. There, he wrote his name. 頼柴直空. For the final kanji, after writing the rest of the character fairly normally, he jerked his pen to the right in creating the bottommost stroke, which jutted out to the right beyond the rest of his name.

As he worked, the rest of the early morning continued on as normal outside the Shibuya Police Building. Located at the intersection where Tamagawa Street turned into Roppongi Street, the 14-story high-rise stood as it always had, with a 10-story pillar of glass windows flanked by two windowless concrete walls jutting out from above the big-screen display above the front entrance. Pedestrians walked in various directions across the designated bridges raised above Route 246’s intersection with Meiji Avenue, while vehicles traveled in either direction along the elevated expressway running atop 246. Numerous buildings lined the parallel routes, from inconsequential buildings two or three stories tall to more notable skyscrapers, from the Shibuya Cross Tower on the north side to the Fudosan Shibuya First Tower on the south. In the distance, Shuto No. 3 appeared to run straight into Roppongi Hills, the largest and closest of the skyscrapers making up the skyline in the east which served as the horizon for the gray morning skies. Though far from gloomy, they weren’t exactly comforting, and yet the outside public went about their daily routines in spite of the atmosphere.

Not that the weather would have had any effect on those on the 6th floor of the Police Building, though. As the analog clock hanging on the wall silently struck 10:00 with just a few ticks of the red second hand, Naokuu and his surrounding co-workers focused on their various tasks at hand, sitting at their desks all the while. But while others typed away on their laptops, Naokuu did as he had been since sitting down and wrote on the forms inside each manila folder, one after the other. The in stack was now only half as big as it was, most of the other half resting in the out bin. As for the missing folder, Naokuu worked his way towards completing it at the top of the hour.

細かい被害は、地域社会のために注意を必要とするため。

The damage, while minor, should still be given attention for the sake of the community.

As he wrote the last sentence on the form, Naokuu’s pen drifted down to the signature box, where he signed off on it as always. His eyes shifted to the left as he set the folder down on the out stack with a soft patter, and then they shifted to the right as he took another folder from the in stack and opened it up. He filled out the blanks at the top, and then started on the opening sentence of the next report.

地域件への被害は以下の通りです:

The damage done to the area in question is as follows…

In jotting down the report, Naokuu did so by copying one of several sheets of notebook paper torn out of a memo book, the very same text in progress written down on it in a more scratchy style than the secondhand transcription Naokuu performed. Below the opening sentence was a list of various forms of damage, complete with bullet points. Broken windows, 壊れた窓; busted doorknob, 倒れたノブ; graffitied wall, 壁に落書き; and missing mailbox, 行方不明の郵便箱.

In due time, the out bin was full beyond the top edge of the wire basket, the manila stack standing at three times its container’s height. As it stood there, waiting to be collected, Naokuu worked on the last of the folders, once more filling out a summary. His eyes darted back and forth across the form as he moved from one line to the next, writing a sentence that for all intents and purposes summarized the damage of that specific case.

要するに、以前の例と同じです。

In short, it is the same as in previous instances.

Following the dotting of the circular period, it was like no time at all passed. Before he knew it, Naokuu was done with the last of the stack. He closed the folder housing the form, his pen sitting down on the desk with the nib exposed, and handed it off to a man in his mid-50s carrying the out stack that sat in the basket moments ago. As one arm supported the stack as it leaned against his suit and tie, the man took the folder with a smile and set it on top, walking off with every last folder.

Naokuu, meanwhile, raised his right arm while placing his left hand on the opposite elbow, stretching the limb above his head as he closed his eyes and let out a whistle of a breath. “Well, that takes care of the first wave.” He lowered his limbs as he leaned back in his chair, slowly opening his eyes to glance at the clock on the wall. According to the white-faced timekeeper, the black numbers and tick marks circling around the hands, it was 11:25. “And just before noon, too.” The right corner of his mouth curved upwards into a wry grin. “Maybe I can actually get myself some lunch this time…” He closed his eyes again, prepared to stand up, but just as his backside lifted itself off of the seat…

A stack of folders plopped down into the in box, without warning. The impact of manila against laminate linoleum stopped Naokuu in his tracks. His brief grin immediately faded as he opened his eyes and looked up at the individual who brought him the folders to begin with. A larger man of about six feet tall with his hair slicked back into a black ponytail stood before his desk, his similarly colored suit buttoned up to only show some of his white undershirt and dark grey tie. His manner of dress was more that of a government agent than a policeman, the pair of sunglasses he wore over his eyes, continuous and form-fitting like a visor, further pushing the question of what his role in the establishment even was. His hands, as large and with masculine structure as his jaw, were splayed open after his delivering of the stack to Naokuu, this one five times as tall as the first.

“Already?”

That quiet query was all Naokuu could ask in the face of this practical behemoth, and all the behemoth responded with was a simple, silent nod before turning left and walking away.

“Yeah… That’s just _great_.”

With nothing further to say in that moment, he reached up and grabbed the topmost folder off the new stack, laying it down on the desk before him. As he reached to grab his pen, he stopped for a second to look at the typed text on the folder’s white label sticker.

物的損害事件＃3561469

神宮前4丁目26

2084年3月13日

Property Damage Case #3561469

Jingumae 4-chome-26

March 13, 2084

“That place _again_?” His gaze down at the familiar text could have lasted long, as full of tiresome disbelief as it was, but it ceased the moment he closed his eyes, sighing in defeat. “You know what they say, no rest for the efficient,” he mused as he picked up his pen and opened the folder, going right to filling in the initial blanks.

Time once again passed as Naokuu started the second wave of paperwork, and soon, it was 1:00 on the dial.

It was then that Naokuu reached another pause in his work, but through happenstance rather than choice. With a sudden tap, his pen fell onto the form he was presently filling out, the clip preventing it from rolling off the desk. Naokuu grunted as he looked down at his wrist, rubbing it gently to ease the cramps. He seemed rather indifferent to the feeling, though the slight furrowing of his eyebrows suggested some degree of annoyance.

“Well, well, taking a break in the middle of work, are we?”

“How very typical of you.”

The pair of voices caught Naokuu’s attention as they hovered over his desk. The man blinked once, his expression unchanging but an annoyed grumble coming out from behind closed lips. Without bringing a stop to his wrist-rubbing, he looked up with not a hint of surprise, but gradually intensifying annoyance.

“Aw, hell. Not _you_ two.”

The two arrivals at his desk this time were two young men around Naokuu’s age, one to two years older at the most. The man standing on the left had short light brown hair with no bangs, leaving his forehead fully visible; wide brown eyes that matched his cocky yet well-meaning grin; and an unbuttoned gray suit with a white undershirt and a striped tie colored baby blue and silver. The other had neatly combed black hair and eyeglasses, a navy blue suit and lighter blue tie, and a serious frown. Unlike his lighter-haired companion, who had one hand on his hip while the other hung by his side, both of the second man’s arms hung down in a dignified manner.

“Hey, c’mon, you can’t be _that_ unhappy to see us,” the lighter-haired man commented, turning his head to the side and tilting it back some.

“On the contrary; you’re invading my desk space,” Naokuu retorted in annoyance.

“Ah, whatever.” The light-haired man closed his eyes.

“Still, Azaguro makes a very good point, Tanoshiba,” the bespectacled man responded. “You can’t keep taking breaks like this whenever you see fit. At this rate, you’ll _never_ see a promotion.”

“Hey, cut me some slack, this is the first break I’ve taken all day. My hand just cramped from all this paperwork, that’s all.” Naokuu sighed softly before opening his eyes, the ever-present weariness tinged with additional emotion as they glanced off to the side. “Besides, it’s not like a promotion’s gonna come my way anyways.” He grunted softly, lowering his head. “Not a _chance_.”

“Bah, you’re so _depressing_ , Tanoshiba!” Azaguro exclaimed, bringing his head back forward as he looked down at Naokuu, his free hand held out and facing upwards. “That attitude of yours isn’t doing your position any favors. You might as well quit _now_ before your spirits drop any lower.”

“My spirits are _plenty_ high, thank you very much.” Naokuu raised his head, opening his eyes once more as he glared at his two co-workers. “Though they’d be _higher_ if you two would just let me get back to work. Don’t you guys have jobs that need doing also?”

Azaguro backed up with a startled groan, as if intimidated by Naokuu’s stare. “You know, I think you’re right!” He turned and patted his bespectacled partner on the shoulder. “C’mon, Natsutaka, let’s get back to work before things turn ugly here.” He finished off his request with a nervous laugh.

Natsutaka looked at Azaguro as he asked his question and sighed. “Okay, if you say so…” He turned and started walking away, with Azaguro following behind.

“Hehe… See you around, Tanoshiba!” Azaguro said as he looked back, his one hand still on Natsutaka’s shoulder.

“Yeah, see ya,” Naokuu replied back as he watched them leave. Once Azaguro turned away from him, his glare narrowed slightly into one of resumed annoyance. “Jerks.”

By that time, Naokuu had finished soothing his aching hand, reaching down to pick up the pen he dropped earlier. Right away, he got back to filling out the current form open before him.

“Man, I just don’t _get_ Tanoshiba,” Azaguro complained as he and Natsutaka walked down the adjacent hallway together. The mesh carpet had now become a marble tiled floor, and outside light from the adjacent windows, separated into rows of four panes each, brightened up the khaki halls considerably. It wasn’t sunny out yet, but the brightness of the gray sky beyond implied that would be coming soon. As he walked in the path of one such subtle illumination, Azaguro’s left hand had moved from his hip to into his pants pocket, a show of his present frustration. “Didn’t he realize I was just playin’ around back there?”

“You call _that_ ‘playing around’?”

“Who _cares_ what it’s called? My point is, he can’t even take a single joke!” Azaguro groaned as his other hand entered his pockets as well. “And he’s not just humorless, he’s also got a lotta gall shutting out our encouragement like that.” He closed his eyes as he came to a stop between two of the windows. “It makes me sick just _thinking_ about it…”

“Even so, you can’t help but pity the guy.”

“Huh?” Azaguro looked at Natsutaka, stopped also with his head lowered and his hand on his chin.

“He’s been with the force for three years now, and in all that time, he’s done nothing but grunt work. What’s more, none of the senior-ranks in the Investigation Division have thought to have him assist with any of their cases.” He lowered his hand as he turned to Azaguro. “That’s a surefire way to show off his potential and earn a promotion, if nothing else.”

“Yeah, yeah, we all know about Tanoshiba’s potential.” Azaguro turned his head slightly and looked up at the dropped ceiling. “But there’s no point as long as Gojiki’s running the Division. You know what they say: the job you do under him for a year straight is the job you do under him for _life_.”

“True, that _is_ the norm for this place. But no one here hates Gojiki for that more than Tanoshiba himself,” Natsutaka pointed out as he turned around and faced the end of the hallway from which they came. “So why isn’t he doing anything to change that? Why stick with the same boring paperwork, day in and day out without question?”

Azaguro turned his head back and looked down the corridor with Natsutaka. “Who knows? Could be he’s accepted his fate as a victim of the government-industrial complex known as the Metropolitan Police Department.”

“Or maybe... Maybe he’s just waiting things out. Sticking to the status quo until the right opportunity arises for him to _make_ that change. The right excuse to move up in the ranks and make good on his potential.”

“Eh, whatever the case, I wouldn’t wanna spend even a _day_ in his shoes.”

“Agreed.”

As the pair’s conversation reached its conclusion, Naokuu reached his own conclusion with his paperwork. He wrote down a few more lines of text for the report portion of his current form, the last of the collection that was dropped into the in box an hour and a half ago, and then finished with his name. As a faint ray of light lit up the open work space through the transparent walls of the conference room, he closed the folder and exhaled in indifferent satisfaction. “There. All finished.” He raised his right hand, the pen still gripped by his digits, and hovered his thumb over the clicker, pressing it shortly thereafter. One click, and done.

********

The early afternoon weather had improved considerably from the dull gray sky that persisted all morning. The seemingly endless cloud sheet hovering over Shibuya had broken up, a muted but otherwise clear atmosphere of blue showing itself around each puff and streak of white. The sun overhead, Naokuu enjoyed what he could witness of the weather as he took his first and, from what his gut told him, only break of the day. It was out in a courtyard behind the Police Building, triangular and blocked off by the Building on two sides and a short black aluminum fence on one. Of the three back-to-back bench pairs present in the tiny outdoors lounge, Naokuu sat down on one of the two benches closest to the fence, looking out at the street and the parking lot across the way. A cigarette was in his mouth, and his Bic was out. With a single flick of the wheel, the flame shot forth, just an inch away from the end of the stick. All it took was for Naokuu to move his head forward just that one inch for the cig to light.

Once its task was completed, Naokuu moved his thumb away from the lighter as the flame extinguished itself, storing it away in his jacket pocket. His right hand came up to the other end, what was exposed just beyond his lips, and grabbed it gently. His thumb and middle finger pinched the sides of the cigarette as he slowly inhaled, a thin trail of smoke emerging from the end as it started to smolder into gray ash just as slowly. As he sat there, enjoying his afternoon smoke more than he was the weather, someone walked up to the bench on which he sat, stopping just at the empty end.

Seconds passed, and then Naokuu’s digits pinched slightly harder as he finished the first drag. He pulled the cigarette away from his mouth, exhaling a trail of white vapor into the lukewarm March air.

“I had a feeling I’d find you out here.”

Naokuu blinked as the soft older voice reached his ears, closing his eyes not a second later with a smile and a soft grunt. “Of course.” He turned to face the man, opening his eyes again. “Break rooms don’t have much appeal for me. Probably ‘cause you’re not allowed to smoke in them.” He reached into his jacket pocket, rummaging around for a few seconds before taking out his box of ROPE brand cigs, showing them to the older man. “Want one?”

“Hn?” The man blinked at Naokuu’s question. He was just an inch under 6 feet, with short black hair, balding through a receding hairline as opposed to a spot in the middle of his head. His suit was dark brown with a grey tinge, and was matched with a dark blue tie with no real pattern. Beyond those basics, he also possessed a long facial structure, a broad jawline, a pencil mustache split into two short strips jutting from the middle, and a pair of round-frame eyeglasses.

All familiar characteristics; all belonging to Koji Yokoshima.

After looking at the young pencil-pusher detective for few seconds more, he smiled and softly chuckled. “No thanks. The wife would go ballistic if I came home smelling of tobacco, hard liquor or the like. Especially since I quit all those things _years_ ago!” As he spoke, finishing his sentence off with a laugh, he took another couple of steps forward and turned to sit next to Naokuu on the bench, holding up a clear rectangular Tupperware container in his right hand. “But here. Feel free to have some of _my_ lunch instead.”

He removed the lime green lid from the top of the container and showed Naokuu its contents. Six crustless sandwiches, jam-packed into the tight confines of their plastic storage with their sides exposed out the top. The contents of each sandwich alternated; three had a slice of lettuce itself sandwiched between two slices of ham, while the other three were clearly egg salad, yellow with chunks of white.

“After all, you can’t live off of _just_ coffee and cigarettes forever.”

“Hmm… Sure, why not?”

Naokuu’s now-empty left hand reached out and took a ham sandwich from the middle of the row. Rectangular in shape not unlike the box, Naokuu held it up as he lowered the cigarette in his other hand.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had anything homemade like this. Thanks a lot, Yokoshima, sir, I really appreciate it.”

With that, Naokuu opened his mouth and took a bite of the sandwich as he brought it up, consuming half of it with that one soft chomp. He closed his eyes as he chewed it up, a crumb from the bread just on the side of his cheek. He gasped softly after swallowing, his eyes opening in impression.

“It’s good!” He took another bite of the sandwich, chewing it up also.

Yokoshima glanced at Naokuu and smiled with a nod. “Hm. I’m glad to hear it, Naokuu. Really glad.” He reached into the container himself and took out the egg salad sandwich from the middle, taking a small bite and chewing it slowly, savoring it slightly more than Naokuu did his.

The two sat and ate as they shared their break together, Naokuu leaning back against the black metal bench while Yokoshima remained upright with a slight hunch. As time passed, the expanse overhead began to change, as the clouds gradually disappeared and allowed more blue sky to reveal itself. Soon enough, conversation followed.

“So, how’s life been treating you lately?” Yokoshima asked.

“Hmm. Pretty much the same as ever,” Naokuu replied. “Landlord jacked up my rent again.” He inhaled gently and exhaled some smoke, his cigarette once more between his lips. “I swear, a pay raise can’t come soon enough.” He closed his eyes, frowning in muted exasperation. “If at _all_ …”

Yokoshima nervously smiled at Naokuu and his less-than-pleased response. “Okay, different topic. What about work? Anything new you’ve been assigned to lately?”

“Is that a joke? Of _course_ there isn’t.” Naokuu hunched forward, taking his cig out of his mouth as more smoke escaped. “The forms Gojiki and his goon squad keep piling on me are some of the most pointless pieces of crap I’ve ever worked on. I could almost _cry_.” He closed his eyes and returned his cig to his mouth, inhaling slowly.

“So nothing new there either,” Yokoshima said with a soft smile. “Still, I wouldn’t fret over it, Naokuu. I’ll have you know I’ve been pushing to get you to help out on some of the Second Ranks’ cases for quite some time.” He reached into his sandwich box and pulled out another egg salad. “Granted, none of my requests have gotten _through_ yet, but I’m sure they will eventually.” He leaned in and took a small bite out of the rectangular sandwich.

“Yeah, hopefully they do,” Naokuu responded with the slightest hints of sarcastic indifference. He pulled his cigarette back and once again blew out a thin trail of smoke. “But enough about _my_ life and recent events.” He turned his head slightly, looking over at his senior co-worker. “How’ve things been in _your_ life, Detective Yokoshima?”

Yokoshima paused at Naokuu’s question for a second, swallowing the contents of his bite slowly. A nervous smile broke out across his face, though compared to that prior, it appeared much more grave.

“Oh, things have been fine. Perfectly, perfectly, fine. Yeah, just fine…”

Naokuu just looked at Yokoshima for a few seconds as he gave his quiet, borderline distant response. A look which he followed up with a reply of his own.

“Now I _know_ that isn’t true. Something’s bothering you, Detective, I can tell.” He lowered his head gently, his exhausted eyes taking on an additional air of sincerity. “Did something happen?”

Yokoshima glanced off to the side as Naokuu spoke to him, his grimace of a smile shrinking down into an appropriately worried frown. He exhaled softly through his partially open mouth, looking down at the ground in further solemnity.

“It’s Muchise.”

Naokuu paused as he heard the name, his concerned expression unchanging but the words that followed much softer than those preceding.

“Your daughter, huh?”

“Yeah. Last night, Machise and I went out to dinner while Muchise was at her monthly track meet. We got back a little later than we anticipated, thought she’d be home when we did. It’d only make sense, since it was late at night. But she wasn’t there. We looked all around the house and we couldn’t find her, not a trace.” As he spoke, Yokoshima’s eyes started to tremble, inching towards the verge of tears.

“You sure she wasn’t staying the night at a friend’s house?”

“If she _did_ , she’d have told us beforehand. Besides, her shoes and phone were both right there, so she _definitely_ returned at some point.”

Naokuu grunted softly, turning his head back as he lifted up his cigarette. “And if she were the kind to run away, she’d have taken both with her.” He put the cig back in his mouth and slowly inhaled once more.

“So that leaves only one possible explanation: she was kidnapped.”

After another few seconds of holding his smoke in his mouth, Naokuu exhaled once again, his face drooping down in increasing concern. “You think the yakuza took her? That _they’re_ responsible?”

“They _might_ be, considering our house was at the edge of last night’s battle. Personally, I’m hoping it _isn’t_ them.” Yokoshima lowered his head slightly further. “But regardless of who’s behind it all…” He sniffled once, a teardrop forming a thin trail down the side of his cheek. “It still _hurts_. My little girl is _gone_ , Naokuu. I don’t know _who_ took her or _where_ they’re keeping her. Not a clue!”

As Yokoshima’s emotions started to spill out, Naokuu merely listened, still smoking as his calm thousand-yard stare pointed forward. But that didn’t stop Yokoshima, tears flowing from both eyes now, from turning to him and bringing his hands up to emphasize his agony, his sandwich crushed between his fingers.

“I can’t even go and get to the bottom of it _myself_! Not when it’s outside our division’s reach!” His teeth clenched, he shrunk down and turned his head back to the side, trembling some more. “And not with Chief Gojiki making the calls… Dammit!”

The older detective clenched his eyes shut and opened his hands, his left pressing against his forehead and teary eyes while the right dropped the remains of his sandwich onto the ground. It came apart on impact, the bread and egg salad laying at both Yokoshima and Naokuu’s feet on the grey stone ground.

“I just don’t know what to _do_ , Naokuu… What should I do? Hell, what _can_ I do?”

As Yokoshima sobbed into his hand, his tears continuing to flow, Naokuu stood up from his bench seat, removing his cig and blowing out one last trail of smoke.

“I’ll tell you what you can do, Mr. Yokoshima. You can head home. Take some time off and process all that you’re going through.”

Yokoshima opened his eyes at Naokuu’s words, slowly moving his hand away and turning to look at him as he continued to speak.

“No one should have to work while deep in the throes of grief. It’s one of the many things you taught me, Detective.”

“Y-Yeah, I get that…” Yokoshima nodded as he turned to face Naokuu, the later continuing to stare off into the distance. “But I can’t leave right _now_! Shouldn’t I give Chief Gojiki a heads-up before I do?”

“You don’t have to tell him _anything_.”

Yokoshima gasped quietly as he looked at Naokuu, the young man raising his cigarette-holding hand as if he were ready to take one extra drag.

“Instead…”

But instead, he let go of the white stick, letting it drop to the ground like the sandwich before it. He placed his right foot on the butt, extinguishing it with a single press…

“Let _me_ do all the talking.”

…and then he jerked it to the side, a black smear forming across the small gray bricks.

********

The lights were all switched off inside one of the several private offices on the Police Building’s seventh floor. This room was completely in the dark, save for daylight seeping in through the office window’s closed venetian blinds, backlighting it just enough to keep things remotely visible. While it failed to make things additionally clear, another light made itself known in the relative darkness: a green flash from the business phone system sitting on the corner of the large wooden desk. The phone rang for several seconds as the light flashed, but the man at the desk didn’t let it go to voicemail. After the initial pause and an additional second to blow a cloud of transparent gray smoke into the closed air, his arm, exposed and hairy with a silver watch on the wrist, reached out and pressed a button, the green blinking coming to a stop as the light remained on.

“What is it?” the man spoke to the system before slowly pulling his finger back.

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” a mousy-voiced woman replied from the other end of the phone. “But there’s someone here asking to see you.”

“And who would _that_ be?” The man pulled his arm back entirely, bringing the cigar in his other hand up and sticking the end back in his mouth. He puffed on the stick as the woman on the other end replied.

“Detective Naokuu Tanoshiba, one of the Third Ranks from the Investigative Division’s sixth floor Documentation Department. He’s rather adamant about meeting with you right this minute, Chief Gojiki. How would you like to proceed with him?”

It didn’t take Gojiki awfully along to think his decision over; just a few seconds. He sat at his desk in that period of thought, taking a few more puffs off of his cigar as his two black-suited sunglasses-wearing associates, one with short hair and the other the ponytailed man from earlier in the day, stood behind him and against the blinds-covered windows like a pair of Secret Service agents. They remained unmoving, while Gojiki did the opposite. He removed his cigar and blew out another cloud of gray smoke, his fully bearded visage twisting into a wide grin, the under-the-breath chuckle accompanying it further pushing the possibility of malicious intentions.

“Send him in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Shibuya Cross Tower is a 32-story high-rise office building in Shibuya, Tokyo that was constructed in 1972.  
> 2\. Fudosan Shibuya First Tower is a 26-story mixed-use high-rise in Shibuya, Tokyo that was constructed in 2008.  
> 3\. Roppongi Hills is a 54-story skyscraper in Roppongi, Tokyo that was constructed in 2000.


	3. Act 2

Creak. The door opened, and in stepped his guest.

“Well, well. It’s been a while, _Detective_ Tanoshiba.”

Gojiki’s greeting of his subordinate by title was tinged with sarcasm, almost as much as his office was tinged with light, both from the slits of his window’s venetian blinds behind him and the crack formed by the ajar door before him. His forearms rested on his desk with hands intertwined, behind a scattered array of papers, and his cigar was standing upright in the jade-colored ashtray at the edge of his desk, the slightest wisps of smoke seeping up from the crumbled, ashy end and into the open air. Not that Naokuu minded. He just stood there, his hands on his hips and his sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow. He glanced off to the side with a blank frown, already disinterested in how his boss welcomed him, if one could even call it that.

“I can’t even remember the last time you set foot in my office.”

“Me either,” Naokuu responded, his eyes shifting back to look at Gojiki. “The same could be said for us meeting face-to-face. And yet your mug’s still as ugly as ever.”

All Gojiki could do in the face of Naokuu’s straightforward insult was snicker under his breath, his mouth opening to falsely widen his grin. Between a thinning yet wild head of hair whose bounds had receded to just a few inches from the very top, the thick and just as wild dark brown mustache, sideburns, and three-inch beard combo that contrasted it perfectly, the perpetual glare from his dead fish eyes, the large bull-like nose, and the yellowed teeth from his smoking habit, the assessment was quite close to the truth.

“Enough with the flattery, Tanoshiba. You came all the way up here to ask me something, didn’t you? So spill it, what’s it you want?”

“Very well,” Naokuu replied. He took a deep breath that lasted all of two seconds, and bowed immediately after. “I would like to request a change of assignment.”

“Hn…” Gojiki grunted softly, reaching for his cigar. “Really…”

“Yes, sir. I want to work on a actual case. No property damage reports or any of that crap, a _real_ active investigation kind of case! It doesn’t even have to be unassigned, even the _smallest_ piece of paperwork for an ongoing case would be enough to satisfy me! And if, by any chance, it could be tied to one of the serial kidnappings that have been going on as of late…” Naokuu glanced up at Gojiki before closing his eyes. “I would be forever grateful.”

Gojiki looked at Naokuu for a few seconds, letting go of the cigar now clenched between his teeth. After those seconds passed, he grinned wide in that same manner of unscrupulousness as before.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to deny your request.”

“Is that so?” Naokuu responded, as if he expected that sort of response out of Gojiki. He raised his head, looking at him with a skeptical glare. “For what reason?”

“I have plenty of reason for my decision, Tanoshiba,” Gojiki said before pulling out his cigar and exhaling the smoke from his drag into the air. “For starters, you’re just a Third Rank, and even abduction cases are saved for Second Ranks or higher. From what _I’ve_ seen, you’re well-suited to the ‘property damage report crap’ you’ve _been_ doing.”

Naokuu grunted under his breath, his eyebrows furrowing and his right eye twitching with growing annoyance.

“And that goes without mentioning the status of our missing person cases. You should know by now that they’ve all been indefinitely shelved. So even if I _did_ honor your request, it’s not like I could just grant you one of _those_ cases to work on,” Gojiki explained as he returned his cigar to his maw.

“The hell you _can’t_!”

Without missing a beat, Naokuu raised his upper body back to his straightened position, his left arm hanging by his side while his other swiftly splayed to the right in emphasis, his hand held open.

“I may be speaking out of line here, but this ‘indefinite shelving’ thing is _completely_ asinine! These kidnappings are serious business, _way_ more serious than a bunch of recurring damage reports!” He clenched his hand tightly into a fist, lowering his arm and head as he closed his eyes. “Especially when our own men are being affected by it.” His eyes twitched slightly in pain as he continued on. “Detective First Rank Yokoshima’s daughter was abducted last night. If _her_ disappearance isn’t enough to justify getting a start on finding the rest of these missing girls…” He opened his eyes and glared at Gojiki with a great furor. “…then what the hell _is_!?” He tilted his head back in a further show of his frustration. “What _possible_ reason do you have against suspending shelving on these files, huh? Answer me!”

Gojiki wasn’t fazed in the slightest by Naokuu’s rant. His smug smile remained as his teeth clamped down on the end of his stogie, smoke escaping through the gaps on either side of the brown wrapping. And once the passionate detective came to a pause, he began his response.

“You really don’t understand, _do_ you?”

Naokuu grunted in frustration, his clenched teeth loosening up slightly as he brought his head back down.

“Face it, you’ve never even taken into consideration why _I_ , why the _whole_ Metropolitan Police system isn’t doing anything to stop your precious serial kidnappings, not one bit. Well allow me to let you in on a little secret…”

Gojiki pulled out his cigar mid-sentence, the smoke escaping into the contaminated air as he continued on, lowering his head to further emphasize his ubiquitous grin.

“It’s the Great Yakuza War.”

Naokuu grunted harshly at the reveal. “So the War’s the reason, huh?”

“That’s right. You see, ever since that whole power struggle started, the backlog of crimes across all 23 Special Wards just _grew_ , almost exponentially. The increase in work was so drastic it more or less slowed everybody down, and nobody could get anywhere with it, what with all the battles adding onto their workload. But above all else, they were just too reluctant to go up against the yakuza. Which is unsurprising, we wouldn’t want to start any bad blood with ‘em now of all times.” He finished his sentence off with a short laugh, an audial contrast to his black-suited subordinates’ visibly unamused expressions.

“So they let all the cases go cold?”

“Not necessarily,” Gojiki explained as he returned the cigar to his ashtray in the same upright position he left it, grinding it against the bottom slowly as new wisps of smoke rose forth from its edges. “Remember, they’ve been shelved _indefinitely_ , not permanently. We’re just waiting for the yakuza to kill each other off and be done with this war. After which we’ll reopen all the cases, only to pin them on the yakuza and put this whole thing to bed.”

“Really? _That’s_ your reasoning?”

“Of course,” Gojiki replied, resting the right side of his chin on the back of his hand. “Is there a problem with that?”

“Damn right there is! What about all the victims?” he demanded angrily.

“If the yakuza’s got ‘em, what can you do?” He narrowed his gaze at Tanoshiba, his hazel eyes fixed and unmoving. “They might as well be dead.”

Naokuu’s gaze narrowed also, grunting between clenched teeth. “That’s _sick_ …”

“ _Is_ it, Tanoshiba? Kidnapping, rape, murder, they’re _all_ within the yakuza’s abilities. The public believes only _they_ could be behind them, and we’d simply be reinforcing those beliefs.” He lowered his arm and raised his head up again, once more grinning. “It’s not like we’re framing innocent civilians for these crimes or anything.”

Naokuu growled under his breath, lifting his head up in renewed anger. “That still doesn’t mean it’s _right_ , you bastard!”

“There it is.”

Naokuu grunted again, staring at him dead-on with a jerk of the head as the vexed gnashing of his teeth came to a halt.

“That look, that tone, that choice of words... I’d recognize it anywhere. That’s the attitude of a rookie cop desperate to stand up for what’s right, even though his actions will _never_ make a difference.”

With another grunt, Naokuu once again gnashed his teeth in growing frustration.

“You could say it’s _because_ of that attitude that I’ve always hated you, Tanoshiba. Three years ago and even now, your ambitious desires have pissed me off. If only your buddy Yokoshima never suggested you be _stationed_ here…” The fingers and thumb of Gojiki’s right hand, as tanned and bulky as the rest of him, pressed against the paper-covered table in irritation. “It’s thanks to _his_ whining and begging that you’re where you are _now_.” He grunted, smirking once again. “He may be sad his daughter’s as good as dead, but _I_ think it’s a godsend.” He opened his eyes, looking up at Naokuu with his arrogant glare. “That’s the price he pays for putting his faith in you.”

“Enough!” Naokuu shouted, backing up a single step as his fists clenched themselves tight and his angry gaze intensified. “Just tell me your _point_ already!”

“My point, huh?” Gojiki placed both hands on his desk and stood up, his buttoned up white shirt, with rolled-up sleeves and black suspenders overlaid, coming up with him. “My _point_ , Tanoshiba, is that Yokoshima’s kid and all those other abductees are _never_ going to be saved. Not by _us_ , and _certainly_ not by _you_ , you worthless desk jockey.”

That last phrase brought Naokuu to the peak of his anger in that moment. He didn’t go over the edge, but the force at which he clenched his teeth was more than enough to show that his limit was being prodded against.

Once those few seconds of silence had passed, and Gojiki moved his hands back, settling themselves on his hips. “Are we done here? If so, get the hell out of my office.”

In spite of his fuming expression, eyes strained beyond normalcy and teeth gnashing just short of audibility, Naokuu inhaled sharply through his nostrils and calmed down as much as he could in that final moment. He growled out a response through his closed teeth, filled with venom aimed directly at his superior officer.

“ _Gladly_.”

********

Hours later, at around the time late afternoon morphed into early evening, Naokuu found himself back on his usual bench in the ground-level courtyard. It didn’t matter what he had done after leaving Gojiki’s office, be it continue on with paperwork or blow off the rest of the day on something non-productive. It didn’t even matter how long he had been out there to begin with. What mattered was, as he sat in the shade, the sky above morphing from azure to orange, he did as he usually did in the courtyard: smoke. All it took was a simple flick of the Bic, followed by several minutes with the tobacco stick stuck between his lips. The most recent of his cigs, he smoked in frustration. His lips curved into a frown as they tightly pursed around the cigarette, shrinking slowly at the lit end. A stick of ash remained stuck to the singed end as it slowly moved closer to eventual completion.

“C’mon, Tanoshiba, _another_ smoke break?”

Naokuu sharply inhaled in surprise and irritation at the sound of Azaguro’s voice, the end of the cig shrinking back slightly faster. It was enough to force the stick of ash on the end to drop off onto the ground below.

Azaguro was among some of the staff at the Police Building to exit out the back doors, most of them dressed in suits and other business formal wear. Azaguro continued walking as he talked to Naokuu, turning his head to look at him as he moved past.

“Keep _those_ up and the upper brass might start dockin’ your pay.”

“Oh, buzz off!” Naokuu angrily retorted, looking at Azaguro as he moved past.

All Azaguro did in response was look away with closed eyes and an amused chuckle. “See ya.”

In turn, Naokuu just grunted as he moved his head back, gripping the cigarette with his index and middle fingers. He inhaled deeply, as if he were taking a deep breath around his smoke to calm himself. It wasn’t long before he stood up and pulled the stick away, blowing out the smoke into the air below, dispelling in front of his jacket-clad torso. After that, he flicked the cigarette onto the ground, the bent stick bouncing once before coming to an immediate stop. He stepped forward, his hands slipping into his jacket pockets, and ground it into the ground with the toe of his shoe. Once that was done, he took out his phone, a dark blue touchscreen with a wallpaper featuring a cliff several hundred feet tall overlooking the sea. The time was 17:07. Aside from that check, Naokuu also pressed one of the few featured app icons with his thumb: a narutomaki slice.

That icon press soon led him to his next destination, a pit stop on his way home. Situated along the same Tamagawa Street he took to work was a noodle shop built into a rust-colored three-story building, with the frame for a roller shutter serving as its entrance. The white decorative curtains hanging from the top of the shutter frame bore the shop’s title in dark red text: 二楽ラーメン, or Futaraku Ramen. Multiple pedestrians, ranging from salarymen to women and children passed between the shopfront and Naokuu’s Civic, parked in the red-paved bike lane with a policeman approaching it from the side.

“Thank you for waiting, sir, here’s your order,” spoke a clerk at the shop.

“Thanks,” Naokuu replied.

Resting on the laminated wood counter was a plastic cylindrical container, containing wheat noodles in a brown broth with what appeared to be beef slices and green onion.

“You know, it’s really unlike you to order take-out from here.”

“It’s fine,” Naokuu replied, lightly placing two folded-up ¥1000 banknotes on the counter next to the container. “I just felt like something different, that’s all.”

The clerk, a portly middle-aged man in an apron and the stout chef hat typically worn by noodle shop proprietors, sighed in response to Naokuu’s reply. “Whatever. Just take care, alright?”

“Sure, same to you.” Naokuu took the container and nodded to the clerk in additional thanks.

And just like that, he was back in his car. His dinner order for the evening sat upright in the empty passenger seat, with a gentle lean against the back for additional support. As he drove along Route 246 in the second half of his return trip, Naokuu held something against the edge of the steering wheel with his right thumb: a parking ticket. The yellow slip, adorned with the all-familiar sight of a red prohibition sign and the phrase 駐車違反, or “parking violation”, remained pressed against the wheel for every second he drove. He glanced down at the ticket occasionally, only doing so for a second before looking back up at the road. Following the most recent of these glances, he looked up with a slightly furrowed brow. His foot pushed against the accelerator, the engine roaring and the Civic speeding up in turn. The cobalt vehicle blazed through the intersection taking him from 246 back to Setagaya Street, and just as it did, the yellow light he faced earlier went red.

********

Over an hour later, the sun began to set over the western horizon, the orange sky now fading to white and then a light purple the further up it went. An owl hooted to signal the impending arrival of night, its unknown perch situated closeby to the two-story apartment complex Naokuu called home. He had marked his return long earlier, back when it was more orange than lavender outside.

Inside, the bathroom faucet was running, a continuous stream of warm water pouring into the sink, only to go down the drain as what followed behind took its place. Having disrobed from his work attire, Naokuu, dressed only in a pair of faded, vertically striped white-and-blue boxer shorts, stood before the mirror above the sink, his head hunched down likewise. His hands swept themselves under the stream for just a few seconds, only to take the paltry amounts of liquid they collected and splash them onto his face. He groaned softly as he rubbed the water into his face further, the tips of his fingers gently pressing against his eyelids. Upon finishing those actions, he looked into the mirror. He saw his face, eyes strained from working all morning and smoking all afternoon, mouth open slightly in tired indifference as he slowly caught his breath, droplets of water from the recent face-rub slowly running down his cheeks and the side of his nose like beads of sweat. He saw his hands, held up in front of his subtly sculpted pectorals, not yet taking the chance to rest from their previously assigned duty. He saw the sole ceiling light for the bathroom behind him, providing the only source of artificial light for his apartment with its dim yellow glow. He saw all of those things. He could hear the still-running faucet, too. But as time passed around his reflecting gaze, the hissing rush of water faded out, unpleasant thoughts from earlier fading in to take its place.

 _Yokoshima’s kid will_ never _be saved. That’s the price he pays for putting his faith in you, you worthless desk jockey._

Gojiki’s words from their meeting, the synthesis of sentence fragments summarizing the supposed truths he didn’t want to admit, angered Naokuu. His mouthbreathing slowed to a stop, soon replaced by the clenching of teeth, and then…

“Shut up!!”

As he released his frustrated shout, his right hand balled into a fist and pulled back, preparing to strike the mirror and shatter it with a single punch. But while he threw the punch, it stopped just before making contact with the mirror. The worst done to the reflective surface was the brief splatter of water from the back of his hand. He stood there, his one arm outstretched while the other hung limp. His closed eyes and pursed lips twitched occasionally, as if he were shutting out any further anger from unleashing itself, but his fist remained frozen and firm in those few seconds of aftermath. That time was up as soon as his hand moved, opening up and touching the mirror, fingertips against glass. Naokuu stepped forward, his arm bending in those two steps, and looked into the mirror with squinted eyes. Gone was his tired indifference, and gone was his anger. All that remained was pensive self-doubt.

“The hell’s _wrong_ with me…”

Moving nary a muscle, he continued staring into the mirror – staring into _himself_ – as memories started to make their way to the surface.

**“If any one time in my past was responsible for bringing on my current way of life, it would without a doubt be my childhood.”**

His first memory took him to an apartment complex. Like his, it was a two-story rental building with stucco exterior. Unlike his, the building was only half as wide – three apartments instead of six – the outdoor balconies were self-contained instead of interconnecting as a means of access, a chain-link fence set the building apart from the side parking, and there was a small three-car parking lot in front, separated only by the brown railings of the first and second floors. Only one car, a faded green hatchback, was parked in that lot, on the far right next to a brick wall that framed the gated entrance into the small complex. A clothesline with laundry hanging out to dry was propped up above the leftmost second-story balcony, the only other implication of human presence inside the building from the façade. It may have just been how Naokuu pictured it in his memory, but it was a sunny day, any and all portions of the outdoors desaturated with bright light.

**“Back then, it was just my mom and I, living in a one-room apartment in Hachioji off checks from the government.”**

Doors into each apartment lined the second story hallway of the apartment, though a single one in particular came to mind: #202. The number was displayed in black on the top left corner of a white tag, next to the brown wooden door. Below the number was a label that listed the residents of that apartment; the last name listed once, but two given names provided, both handwritten.

頼柴 郁葉

直空

Ikuha and Naokuu Tanoshiba.

**“Without a father, I had no real role model to look up to, and being an only child, it wasn’t exactly easy for me to make friends.”**

Standing inside the apartment in that memory was a woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties, though still young. Her black hair flowed freely, as kempt as it could be while still emitting an air of frizz, as did the pink apron she wore over her long-sleeved shirt and knee-length skirt. She stood on the wooden floor of the apartment’s kitchen area, built rather close to the entryway. She stood before the metal sink as she washed a porcelain plate, as white as the wall tiling the kitchen counter backed up to, with a light brown dishrag. It appeared to be one of several dishes she was working on in that moment. She kept up those motions in the fluorescently lit entry space, looking down as her eyes hid behind her fringe bangs. As she did, the door creaked open.

**“Not that I minded. I had a way of dealing with that hole in my life, a place of solace where I could avoid the loneliness.”**

A pair of quick-moving footsteps raced across the laminated hardwood of the kitchen-hall synthesis and past the half-open sliding door leading into the living room, adorned with eight tatami mats. The main pieces of furniture laying atop them were two futons – one big, one small, both with a pillow – but a black seat cushion with a white button in the middle was where the child who just came home was headed. Immediately, he knelt down on the cushion and picked up a black remote, his finger hovering over the red power button as he pointed it at the appliance directly before him: a brown CRT monitor.

**“Television.”**

One press, and it was on. What the child’s eyes were greeted with was the standard-def sight of a police cruiser roughly braking to a stop in the middle of a city street. Two cops got out of either side of the front seat and took off. Both were fairly musclebound under their blue short-sleeved uniforms. The officer who emerged from the passenger’s side, bearing a full head of hair plus a full but neatly trimmed mustache-beard combo, ran ahead into the offscreen action while the driver, a younger man with blonde hair going down to his neck, followed suit.

**“Of all the different shows I watched, cop shows were my favorite, above all else.”**

Cut to the next scene, a street punk rapidly catching his breath in the middle of an empty alleyway. He had messy dark brown hair and a scar over his closed-shut right eye, the former of which was kept out of his eyes by a red headband. He was also dressed in a black leather jacket and grey T-shirt with a question mark insignia, and in his hand was a suspicious looking sack he held by the open end. As he finished catching his breath, the cops from before showed up on either side of the alley. With a voiceless gasp, he looked back at the bearded cop that cornered him from behind. He was swiftly met with a roundhouse kick to the face, which made him spin around several times in a reactionary daze. Just as he came to a stop, facing his original direction, the blonde cop punched him in the face. The punk closed his eyes as brief splashes of blood came from his bruised nose, falling to his knees. It was then that the bearded cop cuffed his hands behind his back. He and his partner, both on one knee on either side of the punk, placed their hands on his back and looked right at the viewer, smiling as their free hands formed two matching thumbs-ups. Behind them, the background of the alley disappeared, replaced by a yellow expanse filled up by large red text with white outlining.

スーパー警察

SUPER POLICE

**“Action, comedy, drama, mystery, thriller, it didn’t matter the genre. If it had cops catching crooks and looking badass while doing it, my eyes were glued to the screen.”**

Indeed they were. A young Naokuu, only eight years old, dressed in a bright orange T-shirt and navy blue cargo shorts, watched the screen with intent as he knelt on the cushion he rushed to moments earlier. His eyes were wide, almost sparkling, and his mouth was open in amazement. Once that moment of wonder passed, his lips flattened out from their O-shape to a wide smile. From its quick yet natural formation to the presence of teeth, one of which was missing from the top row, it was clear that his smile was one of childlike optimism.

**“And just like that, I found my role models.”**

Naokuu’s next memory took him a few years later, to when he was eleven. He was dressed in a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and jeans, his black backpack slung over his right shoulder as he walked along the accompanying sidewalk of one of Hachioji’s many urban streets. Much like the previous memory, this specific day was a bright one, saturated in a bath of bright sunlight. The younger Naokuu came to a stop at an intersection barren of vehicles and looked over in the direction of the drug store at the opposite corner.

**“My appreciation for them only grew from there.”**

Standing at that corner were two other people. The first was a young man in his mid-20s, dressed in a standard police uniform with the light blue shirt, dark blue vest, and cap on his head. The second was a much older woman in her late 60s, holding a brown paper bag filled with groceries against her chest, clad in a pink wool sweater. Naokuu couldn’t hear their exchange of dialogue, but he could see their actions. The policeman picked up a small can off the ground and gently placed it in the bag it fell from. The woman asked something to the officer, to which he responded with a few words of his own, followed by a point of his finger across the street. The woman bowed in thanks before heading off, the policeman bowing back. As she went across the empty street, the officer adjusted his cap, his right hand behind his head and his left on the edge of the visor.

**“I came to recognize them not just as crimefighters, but as protectors of public safety. Figures the greater good could always rely on.”**

As that sight finished playing out, Naokuu continued to stand and watch, smiling in admiration.

**“Something I wanted to be when I grew up.”**

The next memory came with the sound of a blank being fired into the air from a starter pistol.

**“Before long, I decided to make that dream a reality.”**

Fast-forward several years later. Naokuu was now 17, the shaggy bob of hair from his youth cut shorter into a more regular haircut. Dressed in a white tee bearing his surname in hiragana – たのしば – red shorts with a white stripe running down either side, and a pair of black and white sneakers, he ran across a short stretch of track marked in white on the dirt grounds of a high school courtyard. Bringing one hand up with each stride, alternating between left and right, inhaling and exhaling in that same tune, he rushed ahead of the students behind him, either running as fast or attempting to keep up in spite of their tiredness. He slowed down after crossing the end line, still taking a few steps as he reached a stopping point and turned around, his arms spread out and a satisfied grin on his face.

**“I started by building myself up, making myself physically worthy of being a future officer of the law.”**

With little warning, another memory from that same timeframe followed. This time, Naokuu was in a gymnasium with spectators standing on both the main wooden floor and the upper deck surrounding it. Dressed in a red spandex uniform with no sleeves and short pantlegs, as well as an earguard with similarly colored muffs, he was engaged in a wrestling match with who appeared to be another student from a rival school. His wrestling uniform was blue and his earguard muffs were black to match his flattop, and his build was notably larger than Naokuu’s, especially in regards to his arm muscles and abdomen. Naokuu lunged at his opponent, trying to grab him, but the opponent dodged his strike, turning around and looking down at the crouched Naokuu with a determined grin. Glancing back at him for a split second, Naokuu just as swiftly turned around and rushed him, arms up to grab again. But the other grabbed first, gripping the neck of his uniform as his grin widened. He jerked him to the right, prepared to throw him onto the ground, but Naokuu broke free of his grasp and stepped back, releasing a single deep breath as he brought his arms out in preparation to attack. With little time to think up a strategy, he rushed at his adversary with a scream, sweat flying off the sides of his head. The larger male brought his arms forward, prepared to trap Naokuu with a bear hug, but found nothing. Looking down in surprise, his grip loosened…

**“The road wasn’t pretty, but it was worth taking.”**

…only for Naokuu to come up behind him, thrusting his arms upward under his one-time rival’s armpits and trapping him in a Full Nelson. The opponent reacted with surprise, grunting as his eyes widened and teeth clenched, while Naokuu just glared from behind with the slightest grin. And then, he threw himself down onto the blue playing mat, bringing his foe down with him. From that moment on, the match was decided.

“Tanoshiba from Ochieda High is the winner!” the referee announced as he held Naokuu’s right arm up.

Naokuu smiled at his victory, his hand balled into a fist to further show it. “All right!” he happily exclaimed.

**“After that, I enrolled at the Yamamoka Memorial Police Academy in Tokyo, where I refined my existing skills and learned new ones.”**

Fast-forward another two years, to the aforementioned Academy. The main building, approximately seven stories tall, had two wings on either side of an atrium, the wings bearing a light gray metal exterior cover with black bands of windows wrapping around for each floor. The atrium, by contrast, was all window, the transparency tinted blue. A large group of trainees about 50 strong, all wearing white tees and black pants, ran atop the wide concrete sidewalk running parallel to the building’s back, separating it from the balcony overlooking the sea.

Inside the building, in one of the basement floors, was a practice range for firearms. The room was lit by one long fluorescent light spanning the width of the range in the shooting area, the white soundproofing material lining the walls making it brighter while perfectly contrasting the dark gray tile floor. It was there that a 19-year old Naokuu, dressed in the same white tee and black pants with belt as those outside, stood among a few other students. Wearing transparent goggles and black headphones, he pointed a black Sig Sauer P250 pistol down the length of the range and fired at the target at the opposite end. As he lowered his gun, he looked at the target, the earthen berm behind making it difficult to tell where in the black human-shaped target the bullet holes were. But then, a light turned on in back, lighting up the berm and revealing the locations of each hole. Six landed in the center, two overlapping right on the bullseye, and four just barely outside the first ring.

**“It was there that I formed a mentorship with one of their interim instructors: Detective Koji Yokoshima.”**

Naokuu exhaled in relief as he lowered his gun further and turned to his right. Standing there was a younger Yokoshima, dressed in his usual brown suit and eyeglasses but possessing slightly more hair. He looked at Naokuu and smiled, giving him a thumbs-up. Smiling back, Naokuu nodded in thanks, closing his eyes gently.

**“He really helped me along during my training, which allowed me to graduate in the top 10% of my class.”**

Like that, a flash came and brought him another year or so forward. He was 20 now, and dressed in a dark blue tunic with two breast pockets and a thin epaulette for each shoulder, a larger flap with two lines of gold trim sitting under the right epaulette and grazing the top of the respective pocket. He also wore similarly dark dress pants and white gloves, with a peaked cap resting on his head to finish off the look. He stood among many of his academy peers, male and female and dressed like he was – only the ladies got a bowler hat in place of the peaked cap – with his right hand raised up to his forehead in a saluting position. The flashing of cameras all around him further enforced the attentive atmosphere of the situation he was in: graduation day at the academy. Blinking once, he looked up at the main stage and shot someone a slight smile.

Sitting in one of the many seats onstage was Yokoshima, dressed in his formal uniform with the cap resting on his lap. It was much like Naokuu’s, only his had a few more decorations in the areas above his breast pockets. Naokuu looked up at him, and in turn, he smiled back.

**“I was grateful for his guidance, and in return, he pulled a few strings and got me a position at his place of work, the Investigative Division of the Shibuya Police.”**

Following the memory of his graduation came one evoking recent familiarity: the Shibuya Police Building. The pillar of glass windows, the concrete flanks, the big-screen display above the first-floor entrance of sliding doors. They were daily characteristics he knew belonged to that establishment in the time he had worked there. But back then, they were new. They were unfamiliar. They were gates to a brave new world for the fledgling officer named Naokuu Tanoshiba. Facing the front doors, he looked up with an optimistic smile. Dressed in his black jacket, white undershirt and slate tie, with nothing in hand but a backpack slung over his shoulder, he was more than ready to step inside, more than ready to face what met him.

**“To him, being actively involved in solving cases was highly preferable to sitting bored in a police box all day, waiting for something exciting to happen. Those words and his presence gave me hope for a bright future in law enforcement.”**

And then, everything became pitch black.

**“One that was quickly crushed by reality.”**

Then everything came back in a flash. This next memory was less a memory but a mental representation. A solitary working desk in the middle of a sea green marble tile floor, with darkness surrounding it on all sides and a single light from above providing the only means of workable vision. It was his desk from work in appearance and belongings, from the nameplate to the ballpoint pen jar to the black stapler. The in and out boxes on either side were piled high with manila folders, some leaning against the additional stacks surrounding each main one, others missing sheets that were sporadically strewn about the desktop.

**“What awaited me weren’t meaningful cases, but meaningless paperwork. Three whole years of property damage reports for the same repetitive bunch of sites around Shibuya!”**

And there he was, sitting at the desk. The 23 year-old Naokuu, his hair longer and messier than it was three years ago, with spotty facial hair and heavy bags under his eyes. He moved the pen in his hand back and forth across the paper sheet lying in the open manila folder before him, a case that was just as monotonous to him as the task he was doing.

**“The Great Yakuza War kept pushing things into further ruin, there was no way these reports would do any good for the public!”**

After what to him felt like forever, writing the same old sentences again and again, he stopped and looked down, trembling in worrisome fatigue as he tried to keep a hold on his pen. His thumb, index and middle fingers pressed against the clear body of the writing utensil, but it still twitched in his grasp, as if he were about to drop it at any given moment, without a modicum of a warning.

**“I kept hoping for change, an end to the tedium, but no matter what, I was forced to face the truth. I’m no detective, I’m not even a cop! I’m nothing but a third-rate paper bitch!”**

His eyes shot open, a brief glimmer of rage brightening up his dull red orbs ever so slightly, and his fingers pressed harder against the pen, shattering the body as the pillar of black ink broke free into an amorphous column. It slowly made its way down, mixing with the blood from his hand, cut into by the shards of the pen’s shaft. But inside that dark column, as it expanded in width on its way down to the solid surface below, an image started to form…

 **“And it’s all because of Akunori Gojiki, the corrupt scumbag chief of the Investigative Division. If anyone’s to blame for my monotonous life, it’s _that_** **jackass** **.** **”**

It was that of Gojiki. The lower half of his face, at least. Bull nose, unruly beard and mustache, and that wicked grin. It opened just a bit to show his teeth, a sinister chuckle emerging from it before fading away into the darkness.

The column of ink and blood had already reached the desk, the papers, the folders by then, splattering across them and blocking out all signs of legibility. Next to the mess on a comparatively clean piece of paper was a message, written by the splatter with what appeared to be one’s finger. It was large, taking up the whole page, with a rather eerie air at that.

終われ

END IT

**“With him around, it all felt hopeless. But really, it _wasn’t_.”**

That summary of memory soon faded from Naokuu’s mind, and before he knew it, he was back in the real world. Back in his one-room apartment in Setagaya. Having finished washing up, he walked across the cold wooden floor where many of his belongings laid. In one corner of the room were a several miscellaneous items. A dark blue sweatband, a pair of 2.5-kilogram dumbbells with a 5-kilogram pair not far from them, and a partially unzipped duffel bag filled with ammunition fit for a handgun, just to name a few.

**“There are many methods I have to keep myself reminded of what I am beyond the paperwork. Jogging, weight training, weekend visits to the nearby firing range.”**

In the other corner was a DVD player, archaic in appearance for the year at present, but fully operational nonetheless. He took out a disc and set it in the open tray. The dummy side was a dark brown, with the white silhouette of a man in a windblown overcoat and fedora on the left, and the content’s title on the right. 自警団の探偵, The Vigilante Detective. Series 3, disc 2. Within seconds, the tray receded, bringing the DVD into the player.

**“But most of all, the same old shows that made me look up to them in the first place were what really did it.”**

Naokuu sat down on the upper left corner of his futon, dressed simple for the evening. His shirt was white and riddled with old sweat stains, the faded image of a red Greek cross with bottony on all four ends, positioned in the middle. He also wore plain blue jeans and no shoes. In his left hand was his container of take-out noodles, the cap missing and steam coming from the open top, implying they were recently heated. In his right hand was a TV remote, his thumb hovering over the play button as it pointed at the old TV in the corner of the room, flanked on its right by a small square speaker. He faced the CRT monitor, completely blue save for the square “stop” logo in the upper right-hand corner.

**“They were the best way to remind myself that I was a cop.”**

Without further ado, he pressed play.

********

“You sure about this, Chief?”

“I’m _damn_ sure. Now hand over your badge.”

“You want it? You can _have_ it.”

The exchange of dialogue between hard-boiled protagonist and crooked commander emanated from the sole speaker hooked up to the TV. At this point in the story, it was night out in the real world. The only light was the blue glow of the screen, lighting up both the empty container, brown sauce running down the inside walls as green rings of spring onion stuck in certain spots, and Naokuu, who sat watching the dramatic moment with full intent.

The screen focused on the wooden desktop of the police chief, kempt with a switched-on desk lamp in one corner and an old-fashioned telephone on the other, with various work utensils branching the two objects. There was a break in the connection, however, and it was between the ends of that break that the leather flip-open pouch containing the detective’s badge and his ID landed after a toss from offscreen. It opened up to reveal the golden badge on the lower half, the upper obscured by the shadow of the darkened room.

“But know _this_ ,” the detective announced, dressed in his trademark brown overcoat and matching fedora as he pointed at his superior. “I don’t need that badge _or_ your authority to do what’s right for the people of this city.” The glare he gave him intensified, burning with determination in spite of retaining the same black color as his messy hair.

“Hmm,” the chief grunted. “If you’re _that_ persistent, I guess there’s no stopping you.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

Naokuu grunted softly in what appeared to be amusement as the scene went on. Without a doubt, watching the hour-long program he selected for the evening was what he needed to calm down from his earlier furor.

“That said, farewell,” the detective announced as he swung open the door and stepped out of the office, not looking back once. As he did, his overcoat raised up behind him, and a single white kanji appeared onscreen.

完

THE END

Like that, the episode was over. Once the necessary tasks following the conclusion were finished, Naokuu went outside and lit up another cigarette. The stick was held firmly between his lips as he stashed his Bic away, leaning against the door as he took the first drag off of it. Inhale for a few seconds while looking down, and then exhale a steady stream of smoke with head raised. He pulled out his cigarette, the end pinched between his thumb and index, before he blew the smoke out, and once he finished, he remained looking up for another few seconds. Eyes strained, face bathed in bright white porchlight, mouth partially open, and a much more recent memory making its return.

“Yokoshima’s kid and all those other abductees are _never_ going to be saved. Not by _us_ , and _certainly_ not by _you_.”

Gojiki’s words, and even moreso the serious face he bore in that one moment free of his wicked smile, resonated in Naokuu’s mind as clearly as they did in the moment. He hadn’t completely let go of the moment, but his feelings appeared detached. He wasn’t angry like before, nor obviously disdainful. He appeared to be in thought, brief yet meaningful, as he brought his smoke back to his mouth. As he lowered his hand, he closed his eyes and smiled in decision.

“Yeah, that’s right.” He raised his head slightly and opened his eyes, burning with determination in spite of remaining that same dull red. “I don’t need _his_ authority.”

********

**“The titles of ‘detective’ and ‘police officer’ in my case may be superficial, but the ideals those titles hold are anything but.”**

It may have been night out, the sky a dark blue bordering on pitch black with the occasional lingering cloud from the morning overcast, but that didn’t stop Naokuu from going on a night drive. Tonight, his destination was certain, and within a half hour of his departure, he was almost there. It was the only possible reason his Civic would be slowly inching along one of the many sparsely-lit residential streets of Nakano Ward, passing brick and stucco houses built considerably close to the pavement and nearing the entrance to a dead-end street on the right.

**“In adhering to those ideals, the contrast between the promises of the position and the so-called reality within doesn’t even matter.”**

Upon reaching the intersection with the cul-de-sac, his car slowed to a stop, tires squealing quietly. Not because of any traffic sign indicating he should, but the appearance of a pedestrian crossing the street. A young man about 18 years of age, with black hair longer than the average for guys but short enough to still be somewhat masculine, dressed in an unbuttoned black school jacket with a white undershirt, dark blue tie, and black pants. His white school-issue slippers appeared to still be on in spite of classes having ended hours ago, not to mention his school bag was missing, but he didn’t mind. The smile of confidence he wore across his face as he strolled past was enough to dispel any rumors of unhappiness.

Naokuu watched as the student moved past, smiling some as his almost-extinguished cig sat downturned in his mouth and his right wrist rested atop the wheel. He saw the boy turn to him, eyes closed and smile wide, and wave, as if he was thanking him for stopping so he could pass. Naokuu raised his resting hand in turn, his smile perking up just a tad. It was like the stranger’s own confidence was rubbing off on him, adding to what he already had.

**“Still, it takes more than just ideals to escape the cycle of monotony.”**

After parking his car and discarding his cigarette, Naokuu walked up to his destination: the Yokoshima residence, the dimly lit porch being the only source of light from the house at the present hour. Naokuu, now free of his cigarette, pressed the door alarm once, producing a single buzz that lasted a few seconds.

**“But now, I _finally_ have what I need to break free.”**

Just as the buzz finished, the lights behind the thin, curtain-covered windows on either side of the front door turned on, and the door itself swung open. Standing there was Yokoshima, no longer wearing his glasses and instead of his suit, bearing a dark mauve jinbei and indoor slippers. Groaning as he opened the door, his right hand on the wooden frame for support, he looked up and blinked in exhaustion. Within seconds, his tiny eyes widened in surprise.

“Naokuu?”

“Sorry to bother you so late like this, Detective, but I’ve made my decision.”

“What decision?”

“Gojiki told me I wasn’t allowed to investigate any of the recent abduction cases,” Naokuu explained, leaning against the other side of the doorframe. “I say to hell with that. I’m looking into ‘em anyways.”

“Are you insane!?” Yokoshima quietly shouted, backing up some. “You _do_ realize that goes against our protocol, don’t you? You could get _discharged_ for that sort of thing!”

“Yeah, I know.”

Yokoshima gasped softly.

“But that’s only if I do it where others can see it. I’m not dumb enough to get myself ratted on.” Naokuu’s unwavering grin only widened as he lowered his head. “That’s why this’ll all happen outside the office, between just the two of us. Gojiki can’t discharge me if he and nobody else knows what’s up.”

Yokoshima just looked at Naokuu for a few seconds, then nodding his head in understanding. “I see. But you’re still taking a big risk, Naokuu. Sooner or later, your job, and maybe even mine, will be put on the line.”

“I’ve prepared for that, don’t worry,” Naokuu reassured, opening his eyes as he raised his head back to its normal level. “Believe me. This is the only way we can possibly save all the girls our superiors just abandoned. Both _them_ …” His grin faded and his gaze narrowed, both with the utmost seriousness. “... _and_ your daughter, Mr. Yokoshima.”

Yokoshima looked at Naokuu in silence again, blinking once as those few seconds passed. He soon followed up that blink with a soft chuckle. “Still stubborn like always, especially when it comes to what interests you.”

“To be a police officer is to do all it takes to protect the greater good. That’s just one of the many things you taught me back at the Academy, Mr. Yokoshima.”

“That it is,” Yokoshima replied with a nod, his smile fading into an expression of solemnity. “You promise to find and save Muchise before any others, won’t you, Naokuu?”

“Of course,” Naokuu replied with an equal nod, his smile having returned. “It’s the least I could do, after all the time I spent under your wing.” He held out his right hand for Yokoshima to shake.

Yokoshima grunted softly, holding out his own right hand and grabbing Naokuu’s with it. “All the more reason to keep to it.”

“Oh, I _will_. Count on it.”

With that, the two shook hands, firmly gripping onto each other as they stood and faced one another. Both men smiled in mutual agreement at the terms they came to in that one minute of conversation.

********

“Hm? So you’re not going in tomorrow?”

“Nope. Gojiki won’t be expecting me to come in, after our last encounter. I can afford to skip a day under those circumstances, especially when I’ve got Saturday set aside to catch up on my ‘work’.”

Yokoshima sighed. “Again with the risks.”

“That aside, it’s all pretty cut and dry. I come over, you share all you know, and from there, we can _really_ get a start on this.”

“I hope that’s the case.”

“Yeah, I hope so too.”

That exchange of dialogue replayed in Naokuu’s head minutes later, as he left Yokoshima’s house and headed back to his car. It was parked in a 14-car lot between two other dead-end streets, filled with only five more cars. The blue Civic was parked on the west side of the lot, just two spots away from a black Toyota C-HR. Upon approaching the car, he took out his key and slid it into the slot next to the driver’s side door handle, this time without attempting to remotely unlock it with the broken fob. He opened his door shortly after and sat down, taking the key and sliding it into the ignition. Another, larger turn of the key later brought the car to life, the engine roaring as the lights lit up for a brief second. Some switched back off, while others stayed on thanks to the activated headlight control. Though the car had started, Naokuu simply placed his hands on the wheel and kept them there, making no move for the automatic selection lever. He just held the black wheel, hands at 10 and 2, gently wrapped around the outer ring for a few seconds, and then gripping it tight.

**“Ideals inherent to one’s profession, and goals that make aspiring to those ideals worthwhile. Together with the resolve to pursue those goals, monotony can no longer exist.”**

Seconds later, his left hand moved down to the transmission selection and pushed a button on the side with his thumb. With a quick jerk of the hand, it went from P to R. A push of the accelerator allowed the car to back up into the street, slowing to the stop as it faced the exit of the cul-de-sac it drove in on.

**“The daily routine becomes one that’s engaging and ever-changing.”**

After a few seconds idling by, the car’s hi-beams switched on, brightening up Naokuu’s way home further. He sat behind the wheel, right hand still at 2 and left hand back on 10, and grinned with the utmost confidence, much like the schoolboy he saw on his way there.

**“Tomorrow, my life as a policeman begins anew. Tomorrow, I begin my investigation…”**

His eyes then narrowed, in part due to the his brights, and in part due to a more personal feeling. In spite of that same weary look, it was not exhaustion, nor falsified confidence. Instead, it was determination, pure and simple.

**“…into finding Muchise Yokoshima!”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Narutomaki is a type of Japanese fishcake known for its red spiral pattern, slices of which are typically served with ramen.  
> 2\. Futaraku Ramen is a reference to Ichiraku Ramen (一楽ラーメン), the noodle shop featured in the anime Naruto.  
> 3\. A starter pistol is a handgun used to signal the start of races, typically of the track and field variety.  
> 4\. An epaulette is a decorative shoulder piece commonly worn by members of armed forces, but also by police officers in certain countries as part of their formal uniform.  
> 5\. The dummy side is the top side of a single-sided DVD with recorded material on it.  
> 6\. By the way, yes, the boy crossing the street that Naokuu stopped for is, in fact, Shin.  
> 7\. A jinbei is a type of traditional indoor wear for Japanese families, sometimes worn as pajamas.


End file.
